Ask me in the morning
by inkydoo
Summary: (one-shot) A worn out Meryl is too tired to be bitchy and a drunken Vash lets a secret slip... but he probably won't remember anything in the morning...


Ask me in the morning...

A/N: This is probably sometime after the Fifth Moon Incident...but before the encounter with Zazie... Meryl is too tired to be bitchy and a drunken Vash lets a secret slip... but he probably won't remember sticking his foot in his mouth. I don't know where the hell Milly and Wolfwood are.

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"Hey Miss... I think your friend needs some help..." The bartender called out to Meryl as she was trying to stealthily exit the saloon. She grudgingly snapped to attention and looked over at the huge pile of blond man at the bar. She had had a long, exhausting day of following the lanky wanderer around and was about to leave him at the bar out of spite, but under the watchful eye of the bartender, she had no choice but to gather up the inebriated gunman and take him with her. There was really no reason to shirk her responsibilities now. This was her job. He was her job. As much as she hated to think of him like that, it was times such as this one that really made her feel like he was a burden, a burden that she alone had to shoulder. 'He drinks so much...' she thought to herself. 'Someday he's really gonna hurt himself. What is he drinking this much for anyway?' It seemed like something had been bothering him lately. Recently, he seemed guarded around Meryl, and she started to wonder if he wasn't drinking because of her.

She shook the guilt out of her mind, walked over to him and nudged him to see how lucid he was. She had given up on being mad. If she knew anything, it was that being mad at a drunk didn't do anybody any good. It was like lecturing a kitten. He sort of half-way flopped over and gurgled something she couldn't understand. "Can you stand up?" She asked him as she put a hand under his arm and steered him away from the bar. He slowly lumbered to his feet and supported himself on the small woman, who was cringing under his crushing weight. 'This machine gun arm of his is so heavy...I should have gone for the other side...' They slowly limped out of the bar like a very inefficient symbiotic organism.

As they made their way out of the bar, Vash came out of his drunken stupor a little and noticed the person who was keeping him upright. "Hey insurance girl...what are you doing down there?"

"What do you mean? I'm holding you up so you don't fall on your face." She was a little irritated, but was suddenly more concerned with getting him to his room and safely into bed than starting a fight. She had seen him drunk several times, but she had never seen him _this_ drunk, and if a bounty hunter found him in this state, it would be curtains for the gunman.

"Oh yeah... Hey! Why aren't you yelling at me? You always yell at me when I'm drunk." He was slurring all his words. He looked like a drunk puppy who was expecting to get kicked.

His eyes made her heart fill with remorse. She didn't want to be mean to him. It just always seemed to come out that way. She brushed the guilt aside. "Vash, I'm too tired to be mad at you tonight. I just want to get you home and get to bed so I can get some work done tomorrow." Her shoulders were starting to ache, but the hotel wasn't very far away. At last they had made it past the dusty street, up the few stairs to the foyer, and down the hall to Vash's room. Meryl dug the keys out of Vash's coat pocket and fumbled with the lock. Eventually the door swung open and the two of them stumbled into the small room, both landing on the bed. She blushed a little, but came to her senses and realized she was trapped under the inebriated man.

"Vash. Vaa-aash..." she shook him gently and tried to coax the gunman back into consciousness with a sing-song voice. Didn't seem to be working... "VASH!"

"Wha- oh... Hi Meryl." He looked down at her as if he was looking at her for the first time that night. He smiled down at her, looking shy, confused, and completely innocent. "What are you doing on my bed?"

She took a deep breath and said, with as much calm as she could possibly muster, "I'm trying to get you to roll over so I can go to my room and go to sleep." She didn't know where these untapped reservoirs of patience were coming from, but she was tired of always griping at Vash. She had been a bit harsh with him over the past few weeks and feared he was avoiding her because of her temper.

"Oh yeah, of course. That makes plenty of sens..." He trailed off as he rolled over and unpinned the small insurance agent. Once she sat up, she had a chance to stretch her pained shoulders. She looked at him with his glassy eyes and brushed a few stray hairs away from his face, contemplating just who she was sitting next to. 'He is so drunk...' She looked at him a little longer as he pawed a pillow to get comfortable. Just as she was getting up to walk out, she felt a hand grab her wrist and hold her steadily.

"What?... What is it, Vash?" She was a little alarmed, but not scared, and he rolled over with the sweetest face, which disarmed any and all forms of defense Meryl had ever constructed.

"Meryl, I don't know why, but I have to tell you something." He was slurring. She was pretty sure he wasn't going to remember this in the morning, so she just bit her tongue and sat back down on the bed.

"Can it wait until the morning?" She tried to reason with him, for what it was worth. She was so tired and she felt more like a babysitter than an insurance agent.

"I don't know...I don't know..." He seemed to be getting flustered. His voice suddenly seemed far off and dreamy. "It's just that I need to tell you that I love you but I don't know how because I know that if I did tell you I would just get smacked in the head or you would punch me in the stomach or just walk off in a huff and I don't want to tell you if you're going to react that way...but at the same time I need to tell you so badly because it kills me to see you every day and not be able to call you mine. But then, what if I do tell you and you don't fell the same way? Or even worse, you don't believe me? But then, I think, I've never been in love before...I don't know what's supposed to happen! And if anyone found out that I had feelings for you, then you would be in danger. I don't know what to do..." At first, the words were coming out slowly, but they picked up until they were rolling out of his mouth at top slur-speed. Meryl couldn't catch it all, but she was pretty sure of what she DID hear. He leaned back into the pillow and looked at the ceiling, thinking drunken, insurance girl-shaped thoughts, not realizing what he was actually saying to the real thing, and not noticing the expression of disbelief forming on his companion's face.

Meryl couldn't believe what she just heard. She suddenly felt like someone who had accidentally stumbled into a very private conversation concerning her. She didn't know what to say to him. Was he actually telling her that he loved her, and that he was, in a way, afraid of her? She knew she was short with him, but this was the man she had deepening feelings for as well...maybe even, dare she think, loved. She would die for him, and almost had, on several occasions. She couldn't believe how her temper made her behave around him. She was about to say something, but then Vash suddenly looked over at her, as if seeing her for the first time. "Hello Meryl." He slurred, "What are you doing here?"

He was SOOO DRUNK! She felt a wave of relief come over her. He wasn't going to remember any of this in the morning at all. In fact, she was pretty sure he wasn't going to remember any of this in the next few minutes. She just looked at him and brushed some more of his stray locks out of his face and kissed him on the cheek. He looked sweet, surprised, satisfied all at once. "Hey... What was that for?"

She smiled, pulled the blanket around him, got up to turn off the light, and trailed her fingers on the wall as she told him to do the impossible: "Ask me in the morning."


End file.
